Women, illegal drugs and prison: views from Canada

International Journal of Drug Policy 10 (1999) 195–207

Women, illegal drugs and prison: views from Canada

Susan Boyd *, Karlene Faith 1

School of Criminology, Simon Fraser Uni6ersity, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada

Received 1 July 1998; received in revised form 22 December 1998; accepted 10 January 1999

Abstract

Current international consensus is that the ‘war on drugs’ has not curtailed the cultivation, manufacture,distribution and consumption of illegal substances. This article focuses on the particular effects of this ‘war’ onwomen, and specifically on the selective criminalization and incarceration of drug users. The authors deconstruct anumber of myths related to drug use, and discuss ways by which race, class and gender biases are engrained inpunitive drug-related social and criminal justice policies. From a critical analysis, they argue that legalization is theonly sensible recourse in addressing ‘the drug problem’. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Drugs; Prison; Women

1. Introduction

In the past two decades, the history-mak-ing expansion of the US prison industry hasboth justified and been justified by the on-go-ing ‘war on drugs’. As of 1994, one of threewomen in US prisons were serving time fordrug offences, compared to one in ten in 1979(Bloom et al., 1994). Canada has been lessdedicated to coralling drug offenders, butevidence abounds to suggest that most law-makers in this country are no better preparedthan those in the States to embark on mean-ingful social reform in myriad policies affect-ing drug users. Although there are indicators

that illegal drug use has either declined orstabilized since the 1970s (Fischer et al., 1996;McKenzie et al., 1997), the media, politiciansand representatives of criminal justice sys-tems continue to emit moral panic rhetoricabout this ‘social problem’.

The one government-commissioned studyof illegal drug use in Canada (LeDain Com-mission, 1973) strongly urged decriminaliza-tion of cannabis, ‘but did not change theoverall governing scheme of legal repression’(Fischer et al., 1996). The recommendation todecriminalize marijuana was echoed to noavail by the Chief Coroner of the Province ofBritish Columbia in an extensive report ondeaths from narcotics overdose (Cain, 1994).A new drug law (Controlled Drugs and Sub-* Corresponding author.

1 Corresponding co-author.

0955-3959/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0955 -3959 (99 )00007 -9

S. Boyd, K. Faith / International Journal of Drug Policy 10 (1999) 195–207196

stances Act S.C. 1996, c. 19), gives increasingpowers to the police, including the authorityto search the residence of a suspect without awarrant, and more generally it continues thesame repressive policies of the previous Nar-cotic Control Act.

In this article, we look at how the ‘war ondrugs’ is also a ‘war on women’ (Bloom etal., 1994). Indeed, the war on drugs is a waron all low-income and low-status people whouse street drugs. In Boyd’s study (Boyd,1999), 71% of the 28 women she interviewed,all of whom had histories of dependency onillegal drugs, were also dependent on welfareassistance. If these women had incomes ade-quate to support family and household ex-penses, much less a drug habit, very few ofthem would have encountered either welfareor the criminal justice system. They wouldenjoy more social protections and they wouldhave fewer reasons to self-medicate. Alexan-der (1990) observes that the ‘war on drugs’signifies a ‘pattern of a war of persecution’,not unlike how heretics were historicallytreated. This war has subjected an increas-ingly large segment of the population, with afocus on inner cities, to state-sponsoredsurveillance, regulation, stigmatization andconfinement.

2. Defining the ‘problem’

Relative to men, women constitute a smallportion of the illegal ‘drug problem,’ in termsof the numbers of women involved and thequantity they consume or sell. Whereas menof all classes are more likely to use streetdrugs like cocaine or heroin, women are morelikely to use pharmaceuticals, the domesticdrugs. The distinction forms in part frommiddle-class girls’ and women’s traditionalrestrictions to the home. Women still havefewer opportunities to obtain illegal drugs,

and many doctors have been quick, withwomen in particular, to prescribe mood-alter-ing pills, and pills to wake her up or to puther to sleep (Penfold and Walker, 1983).When men and women use the same drug,they often experience it differently, suggestingthat drug use, like all social phenomena, isgendered.

In Canada, women account for approxi-mately 14% of all adults convicted underfederal drug legislation (McKenzie et al.,1997). They account for only 10% of chargesfor offences involving cocaine, but nearly athird of offences related to illegal pharmaceu-tical drugs (Health and Welfare Canada,1991). Women are more likely than men tobe charged with ‘multiple doctoring’,whereby they obtain multiple supplies of aprescription drug by surreptitiously visitingmore than one physician. (In some provincesthis practice has been contained recently bycomputer-controlled monitoring systems.)For both men and women, cannabis productsare by far the most frequently ingested andprosecuted illegal drug. Approximately two-thirds of all incarcerated persons chargedwith drug offences in the early 1990s werefound guilty of marijuana possession and/orpossession for the purpose of trafficking(Moreau, 1995; McKenzie et al., 1997). Thisrepresents a bare fraction of those who actu-ally use marijuana, but law enforcement lacksthe resources and political will to be vigilantabout simple possession in every community.

The only traffickers of consequence thatone occasionally encounters in Canadianwomen’s prisons are those who are caughtworking as ‘mules’ (a telling appellation) forinternational, male-controlled drug cartels.These organizations hire poor peasantwomen to harvest the poppies or coca leavesfrom which the drugs will be processed, andthey hire young women without resources tocross borders for international distribution of

S. Boyd, K. Faith / International Journal of Drug Policy 10 (1999) 195–207 197

their products. These ‘mules’, when appre-hended, are jailed in the countries in whichthey are arrested, which means they do notalways speak the language of their keepers(or their executioners, depending on whichcountry it is). Importation offences withinCanada account for only approximately 2%of all drug-related charges (Statistics Canada,1995). However, someone convicted of im-portation is almost certain to serve time inprison and to be eventually deported. In1992, 20% of federal women prisoners inCanada were from other nations; most ofthese women were serving time for drug im-portation offences, the vast majority of whichwere cannabis-related (Kendall, 1993). Thisraises important questions about the interna-tionalization of prisons, with implications forinternational criminal law. More directly forthe women involved, given the almost com-plete lack of language translators and otherspecial services for imprisoned women from‘foreign’ cultures, the isolation and alienationsuch women face while doing their time isprofound, and for those who face deporta-tion the punishment may have only begun(Faith, 1993).

3. Imprisonment as dependency training

Women sentenced to prison commonly suf-fer from major problems related to depen-dency patterns reflective of gendersocialization and class tracking, namely, de-pendencies on domineering but unreliablemen, controlling social service agencies, andboth legal and illegal drugs. Alcohol,cigarettes and legal pharmaceuticals are themost available and toxic drugs (Boyd, 1991;McKenzie et al., 1997). Due to selective crim-inalization, women in Canada convicted ofdrug offences are most likely to be incarcer-ated for possession of and/or trafficking

drugs such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine andstreet pharmaceuticals.

The distinction between using and traffick-ing is seriously flawed, in that most unem-ployed and low-income users must, at leastoccasionally, engage in other criminal activi-ties to support their families and their druguse. Rarely do women set out to ‘deal drugs’.Rather, the combination of their economicsituation and their illegal drug use facilitatesa ‘drifting into dealing’ (Waldorf et al., 1991;Boyd, 1999). This ‘drifting’ into criminalitymay be as benign an act as pooling moneywith friends to buy the drug, or selling smallquantities to their friends to support theirown habit. Certainly there are high-flying,independent women who travel continentsand transport large supplies of ‘controlled’substances for the explicit purpose of gainingwealth. There are also women serving as‘drug dealers’ who may or may not use them-selves but who can make a decent livingwithout leaving their respectable neighbour-hood (Morgan and Joe, 1997). These, how-ever, are not the women one generally meetsin prison.

Most incarcerated women in Canada donot receive assistance if they wish to over-come drug dependencies or work throughpersonal issues which relate to their drug use.When newly-imprisoned women experiencesymptoms of withdrawal, they are generallyput in a segregation cell where they suffer itout cold turkey, with no medical assistance;frequently, they are later put on prescriptiondrugs on which they become dependent.Quality and availability of treatment for de-pendency on alcohol or illegal drugs differsfrom province to province and from one fed-eral prison to another. But where ‘treatment’does exist it is almost entirely focused on12-step programs, which for many women isinappropriate. Even when potentially effec-tive programs exist within prisons, women


whose crimes are not drug-related but whoare having addiction problems, are rarelymotivated to seek out or acknowledge a de-sire for help, because if it is known by theprison staff that they are drug dependent itcould postpone their release on parole.

One primary cause of depression forwomen in prison is that they miss and areworried about their children, who are gener-ally with a family member or in a fosterhome (Faith, 1993). Most seriously forwomen with drug offences on their record,they worry about losing custody and facing afuture which does not include their children.Such a woman is in a double bind: her men-tal anguish, from concerns for her children,may feel unbearable, and the drugs are atempting means of alleviating her pain andanxiety. However, if she does rely on drugsfor peace of mind, and is apprehended, thechances of her never regaining her childrenare increased. Doctors and social workers onthe outside frequently operate from the pre-sumption that if a woman is temporarily‘freed’ from childcare responsibilities, she willreduce her drug dependency. However, thedecision to apprehend a woman’s childrenoften has the opposite effect: when a motherloses her children to social services, eventemporarily, her drug use escalates (Boyd,1999).

In the States, the war on drugs resulted ina rash of publicized cases of pregnant womenwho were detained, confined and threatenedwith losing their infants upon birth. Between1985 and 1995, at least 200 women in 30states were arrested on criminal charges stem-ming from their behaviour during pregnancy,most of which were related to allegations ofillegal drug use (Paltrow, 1992; CRLP, 1996).Given discriminatory social control practices,it is not surprising that approximately 70%were women of colour. The most seriousoutcome of persecutory policies against preg-

nant women who use illegal drugs is that theyare reluctant to visit a doctor, knowing thathis and her authority could result in theirlosing their children. Thus, questions of af-fordability notwithstanding, at the time in thewoman’s life when she most needs reliableand non-judgemental health care, she is leastlikely to seek it. Canada does not presentlyhave a law regarding maternal drug use, but,in practice, and in collaboration between so-cial service agencies and the medical estab-lishment, women in this country, too, arelabelled, placed under surveillance andthreatened with losing their children. Thecharges are not necessarily specific to druguse: rather, the children are taken becausethey are perceived to be ‘at risk’ in theirmother’s care, often a Native woman whouses drugs and who, it is presumed, cannotprovide ‘proper’ care for her children. It issingle mothers in low-income communities, inboth countries, who are targeted by authori-ties and it is these women who are most aptto be incarcerated and to lose their children.

Women who have been embroiled with thelaw on drug charges commonly testify thatrather than discourage further involvementwith illegal drugs, they are encouraged bytheir experience to continue and even escalatetheir use (Boyd, 1999). Women who enterprison without a history of drug use (eitherlicit or illegal) often become addicted to ille-gal substances while in prison. In a study ofthis phenomenon, Nadelman found, from anexamination of a US government study ofincarcerated persons, that ‘‘roughly half theinmates who had used an illegal drug had notdone so until after their first arrest. Althoughdrug abuse does lead some people into crime,criminal subcultures lead others into drugabuse’’ (Nadelmann, 1997). Prisons provideeasy access to potentially addictive sub-stances, either as contraband or through pre-scription. In total institutions for women,


medical directors collude with custody man-agement in using legal sedatives and psy-chotropic drugs to keep the peace; drugs areused as an expedient to control the be-haviours of potentially unruly ‘inmates’, andmany prisoners are happy to comply (Faith,1993). Because the prison experience is onefrom which most persons would wish to es-cape, and because contraband drugs are read-ily available as a temporary escape, womenaccept drugs from other prisoners when theywould never accept them, or even encounterthem, on the outside.

A major study commissioned by Correc-tional Services of Canada (CSC, 1994) foundthat incarcerated women, more often thanmen, suffer from ‘‘chronic health conditionsresulting from lives of poverty, drug use,family violence, sexual assault, adolescentpregnancy, malnutrition, and poor preventivehealth care’’ (CSC, 1994). The most urgenthealth-related concern related to drug use inwomen’s prisons is that of HIV and hepatitisC transmission through sharing of uncleanneedles. Women in prison are even morelikely than men to be infected, and in the 16months since the 1994 report there has been a40% increase in reported HIV–AIDS cases inCanadian prisons (Jurgens, 1996). We havecommunicated with numerous advocates forprisoners’ rights who have expressed alarmthat as many as one-third of women incarcer-ated in certain Canadian prisons may beinfected.

For women a key problem relative to HIVinfection is lack of early diagnosis and, there-fore, delays in entering treatment. Prevention,of course, is the key issue here, but CSCofficials have been slow to recognize the highrates of infected prisoners, or to implementharm-reduction policies (Toepell, 1997). Con-doms have been available in federal men’sprisons since 1992, and bleach, for cleaningneedles, has been available since 1996. How-

ever, policies and distribution practices areuneven according to the particular philoso-phies and resources of specific prison admin-istrations and medical staff. To date noCanadian prison has implemented a needle-exchange program.

Drug laws which criminalize dependencyon heroin and cocaine, for example, can beeffectively blamed for the high rates of HIVinfection in institutions (PASAN, 1992, 1994;Riley and Oscapella, 1996; Jurgens, 1997).Nevertheless, given the pragmatic reality, itwould seem that prisons would be appropri-ate locations for methadone programs—given that methadone is the only drug thatcan be legally substituted for heroin inCanada. To our knowledge, however, it isonly in British Columbia, where the provin-cial government has implemented a pilot pro-gram which allows a woman to receivemethadone while incarcerated. This is condi-tional on her having been already involved ina program on the streets. The woman depen-dent on heroin when she enters the prisoncan not receive methadone while incarcerated(Rothon, 1997–98).

Prison authorities, researchers, and con-ventional wisdom attribute the problems ofincarcerated women to low self-esteem. How-ever, this may be an error of perception(Faith, 1993). The assumption that womenwho are sent to prison, and women who useillegal drugs in particular, generically sufferfrom low self-esteem may be reflective of ablaming or condescending attitude projectedby ‘straight’ people; they cannot imagine thatwomen with so many ‘problems’ could thinkwell of themselves. And of course the prisonexperience itself can erode self-esteem.

Overall, in our experience, women who usedrugs, even if they are apprehended by thelaw, suffer no lesser or greater problems withself-image than do women in society at large.Even the most law-abiding, ‘normal’ women


in society commonly suffer from dependencyissues. Nevertheless, the disrespect shown towomen entrapped by the criminal justice sys-tem, and institutionalized through labellingand incarceration, does inflict loss of agency.This demoralization process can begin in theinstant the woman is apprehended, labeledand stigmatized, such as the woman whosaid: ‘‘[Y]ou want to see a junkie, I’ll giveyou a junkie. It was like a self-fulfillingprophesy. I was just so devastated…andbought into the whole stereotype, as I say, ofwhat a junkie is…if that’s what you think Iam, then I might as well be that’’ (quoted inBoyd, 1999 p. 175). Another woman speaksat length about this:

‘‘…being in jail, it totally strips you ofany self-worth that you have. After peoplehandle you…put chains on your ankles,and transport you to places with shackleson your feet…with your hands tied aroundyour waist with a belt. And after you’retreated that way, after a while you give upa part of yourself and I think that theytake it from you. …And a lot of peoplenever get it back. …if you expect a certainbehaviour…then you will get that be-haviour. …And if you say that all drugaddicts are the lowest things on earth, thenthat’s what they’ll be. And if you starttreating all people with respect then, youknow, you start seeing improvement. Butas long as we have this myth aboutdrugs…’’ (quoted in Boyd, 1999 p. 175).

Dependency behaviour is an imperativewithin prisons and other totalitarian institu-tions. Independence is punishable. It is sadlyironic that women who suffer from the mal-ady of over-dependency (on men, social ser-vices, drugs), and whose imprisonment is aconsequence of that dependency pattern, can

fit right in within prison. Prison demandsunquestioned obedience and exacerbates de-pendency problems. Prison policies punishfor demonstrations of individuality, state-ments of opinion that do not concur with‘correctional’ philosophies, or acts of per-sonal agency. The ‘independent woman’ doesnot do well in prison. Just as prisons producedrug dependencies, and various crimes, so dothey often produce, at least temporarily, asevere loss of ability to make decisions or toact in one’s own best interests. Even womenwho survive prison without having useddrugs are often so demoralized by their expe-rience of the criminal justice system that theybecome reliant on legal or illegal drugs uponrelease. Prison, then, can contribute to drugdependency, inside or when they get out, as areaction against the lock-up experience.

4. Getting out

For drug users who are incarcerated,prospects for parole are problematic. Paroleboards are often expected by prisoners to besympathetic to women who are devoted totheir children. But in the unanimous experi-ence of women we have known who havebeen through the system, if a mother is adrug user, she can anticipate doing more timethan if she were a mother who did not usedrugs or a drug user who did not have chil-dren. The women in Boyd’s study specificallybelieved they received more severe sentencingfor failing to assume the proper gender roleof the ‘good mother’ (Boyd, 1999). This isconsistent with the findings of research onsentencing (Eaton, 1986; Daly, 1989). That is,‘good mother’ and ‘drug user’ are incompat-ible constructs in the minds of the board.Whereas in her own mind, in sociologicalterms, her ‘master status’ may be that of amother, to criminal justice and social welfare


personnel her master status is that of a ‘crim-inal’ (Faith, 1993; Boyd, 1999) One womanlaments the following:

We really judge women who use waymore critically [than we judge men]. Butespecially mothers. She is despised becausedrug use means you are a bad mother. Butmy feelings for my kids is the same as itwas when I used. It hasn’t changed. Itangers me that women carry the brunt ofthese things. Men take such little responsi-bility for anything in our society. Andraising kids on your own is difficult andthe price of using drugs is so much higherfor mothers (quoted in Boyd, 1999 p. 200).

When a woman is released, she has manyproblems to contend with: relocating with herchildren, if she is fortunate enough to regaincustody; coping with the stigma and the de-pendency effects of having been institutional-ized; the difficult to impossible challenge offinding liveable employment; the putdownsencountered in social service offices; theproblems of obtaining adequate housing andtransportation; and, because so many womenwho are incarcerated are from political mi-nority groups, the problems associated withracism. Criminal charges, social service inter-vention, child apprehensions, medicalrecords, school records and physical scars canall become evidence of ‘deviance’ which per-mits discrimination and imposes structuraldependencies.

Drug dependencies in low-income commu-nities often result in theft or fraud; womenwho are dependent on a chemical substanceto feel ‘normal’ will commit petty moneycrimes to obtain the drug when they wouldnot otherwise engage in any dishonest be-haviour. The most prevalent illegal be-haviours associated with women’s drug

dependency are street prostitution-related of-fences. A frequent question is whether addic-tion leads to prostitution or vice versa.Certainly drug use does not always precedeprostitution, but Lowman and Fraser (1995)found that even if street workers were usingdrugs prior to prostituting, once they are in‘the trade’, their use escalates, primarily to‘escape reality’. As one woman put it,‘‘Women on the street are battered aboutbetween men and the law, back and forth,back and forth. [A] prostitute’s life is betweena fuck and a fix. A fuck and a fix’’ (Boyd,1999 p. 189). The real issue here is poverty:although illegal drug use is often an associ-ated factor, it is poverty and lack of perceiv-able options which is most often the impetusto engage in relatively non-lucrative streetprostitution.

5. Challenging the myths

A woman who served time for drug of-fences offers this analysis:

These insane images the media and gov-ernment has created of drug dealers is justlike the images they create of enemies dur-ing wars. It’s pure propaganda. Look howthe US [combined] those images with Nor-iega, the drug dealer, the enemy, whichgave the US the impetus to invadePanama. It’s quite frightening. It is obvi-ous that prohibition does not work. Wesaw that during alcohol prohibition, thelaws created more harm, violence, blackmarkets, and actually more consumptionof alcohol. That is what is happening withdrugs too (quoted in Boyd, 1999 p. 201).

Historically, over-zealous social reformers(or ‘moral entrepreneurs’) have been respon-


sible for generating a rash of myths associ-ated with drug users and ‘pushers’. EmilyMurphy was the first woman to serve as amagistrate in Canada even before the BritishPrivy Council, in 1929, officially declaredwomen to be ‘persons’. In 1922 (Murphy,1922), she published a book which was en-tirely fraught with racist attitudes, warningthat white women were at risk of corruptionand harm from black and Asian men whowould seduce them with marijuana, cocaineand opium. Such myths, as conveyed by theNorth American media, persist in sustainingthese stereotypes, which are engrained in le-gal, medical, social service and criminal jus-tice policies. These myths are, however,effectively countered by an abundance of crit-ical, scholarly research which has yet to havean impact on policy-makers, but which pro-vides ample evidence of the futility of tradi-tional approaches (cf. Schur, 1962;Lindesmith, 1965; Waldorf and Biernacki,1979; Rosenbaum, 1981; Hanson et al., 1985;Musto, 1987; Boyd, 1991; Maher, 1992; Weiland Rosen, 1992; Taylor, 1993; Morgan andJoe, 1997; Murphy and Rosenbaum, 1997;Reinarman and Levine, 1997).

Following are a sampling and brief discus-sion of prevailing myths which lacksubstance.

5.1. ‘Drug addicts’ ha6e no attachment to acon6entional life style

In fact, the vast majority of drug users areemployed and are attached to families. Themyth resonates because the vast majority ofdrug users never come into contact with so-cial services and are never criminalized(Boyd, 1994). They are invisible precisely be-cause they do remain attached to a conven-tional life style, and because as ‘respectable’middle-class people they enjoy social protec-tions against the harrassments so commonly

inflicted against people on the street and inlow-income communities.

5.2. Illegal drug use leads to serious crimes

It is generally only those who have a lowincome who need to seek extra-legal means ofobtaining drugs, but low-income workingpeople with drug dependencies do not alwaysresort to illegal activities. The crimes in whichwomen do engage to support drug habits(most commonly, prostitution and shoplift-ing) are not considered major crimes even bythe criminal justice system. The findings ofcritical research consistently agree that crimeassociated with drug use derives from drugprohibition policies (Nadelmann, 1997). Al-though some drugs, especially alcohol, arecommonly associated with violent behaviour,there is no evidence that drugs per se producethat behaviour.

5.3. Once an addict always an addict

Contrary to stereotypes, drug use is a rela-tively fluid activity. It is not a static habit inwhich individuals are forever chained to thedrug to which they are habituated. Individu-als move within a continuum from abstinenceto addiction, and their drug of choice maychange according to what is available or per-ceived as healthy. One woman, for example,said she had tried many drugs in her life—some of which produced a desired effect,others which did not—but she ‘drew the line’at crack cocaine because she heard that it wascut (that is, processed) with cleaning fluid,the idea of which repelled her. Whether withthe assistance of a treatment program orthrough individual withdrawal strategies, it iscommonplace for someone who has been ha-bituated to a particular substance to cease itsuse altogether. Many Viet Nam veterans whohad grown habituated to the use of heroin


while at war in Indochina were no longerinterested in it upon returning to the UnitedStates (Zinberg and Harding, 1979). Theirswas strictly a situational addiction. Such ex-amples of shifts in dependency patterns arecommonplace among drug users.

5.4. All illegal drugs are dangerous

The question of which drugs are legal orillegal is historical, cultural and political. Thedivision separating licit and illegal drugs is asocially constructed phenomenon. There is nouniversal consensus on what is a drug andwhich drugs are dangerous. Among criticalresearchers of drug use patterns, there is anagreement that of all illegal drugs circulatingin North America, marijuana is the mostbenign. Generally, however, the effects of adrug depend in significant part on the indi-vidual consuming it, the reasons they use it,and the circumstances under which they useit. Body type, metabolism, sex/gender, dietand state of health, social and cultural con-texts, the specific drug-taking setting, peerinfluences and one’s personal expectations allaffect a particular drug’s effects on any givenindividual.

5.5. ‘Drug dealers’ are predatory pushers whoseek to corrupt the young

The demonized drug dealer who hangsaround school yards is, for the most part, afiction of the media. When young kids buydrugs they generally buy them from eachother (Fields and Walters, 1985). Whenwomen use drugs they generally get themfrom friends or others trusted by their drug-using circles, and this includes women whoare labeled ‘crack whores’. The exchange ofsex for money, drugs, material possessions ordomestic security is a commonplace in thehistory of gender relations. When women

‘deal’ drugs, as discussed above, they mostoften deal with small quantities and onlydistribute it among acquaintances.

5.6. ‘Gateway’ theory: marijuana leads to‘hard’ drugs

It is true that most people who use heroinhave used marijuana (previously or concur-rently), but it is also true that most peoplewho use marijuana have never tried heroin.Alcohol, the most commonly used of alldrugs within Christian-based nations, alsohas not served as a gateway drug. Indeed,people use the drugs that are available tothem, and availability of illegal drugs is nowdetermined by US foreign policies (Lusane,1991; McCoy, 1991). When the US war ondrugs attacks poppy farmers in Laos, forexample, drug users in North America shiftto cocaine or some other drug. Of all illegaldrug users, habitual marijuana users are theleast interested in other mind-altering chemi-cals, except perhaps hallucinogens like pey-ote, mescaline and LSD, which, in AndrewWeil’s educated opinion, ‘‘may be the safestof all known drugs’’, medically speaking(quoted in Boyd, 1991).

5.7. Women who use drugs are more unrulyand de6iant than men who do so

This myth is grounded in the traditional,Western assumption that women at large aremore unruly and deviant than men whensocial controls are weakened (Faith, 1993). Itis the sex-specific social controls over womenthat gave impetus to the women’s liberationmovements of the 1960–70s, movementswhich by now have become gender monitorsof social policy. Men, who significantly pre-dominate in illegal drug use and trafficking,are perceived to be involved in a ‘social prob-lem’. By contrast, when apprehended for ille-


gal drugs, women are treated as individualinstances of pathological weakness, passivity,sexual promiscuity and deficiency in propermorality and gender role training. The re-search provides clear refutation of these sexbiases (Rosenbaum, 1981; Taylor, 1993;Boyd, 1994, 1999).

6. Seeking alternative responses to illegaldrug use

Given that the problem for illegal drugusers is built into the law and discriminatorycriminal justice systems, a truly alternativeapproach would necessitate changing thelaws and an end to criminalizing and punish-ing people on the basis of their drug use.Commonly proposed alternatives to a prohi-bitionist policy include: a more comprehen-sive public health model; selective law reformso as to avoid treating all illegal drugs asequally dangerous (as has already happenedin many jurisdictions relative to marijuana);and decriminalization of drug use but withgreater penalties for distributors (the contra-dictions of which are discussed above). Eachof these proposals could be construed asfaithful to the ‘harm reduction’ model, exceptto the extent that they fail to address thefundamental issue of the law. Many criticscall for ‘decriminalization’, but an unregu-lated market would perpetuate the potentialfor violence and exploitation. Other critics,with whom we are in agreement, call forlegalization, which would allow for taxation;a separation of the health, social service andpunishment industries in drug matters; moreaccurate and comprehensive public educationabout drugs; unadulterated substances avail-able for purchase; and eliminating organized,illegal drug distribution which produces com-petitive hierarchies of vice profiteering, withthe attendant violence against and exploita-

tion of street dealers and users. Wherewomen are concerned, with legalization theywould no longer have to fear losing theirchildren or being sent to prison.

The few effective programs for women inCanada have very long waiting lists. Mostshelters will not accept women who usedrugs. The virtually complete absence ofworkable drug treatment programs in Cana-dian prisons for women underscores thehypocrisy and futility of fighting the ‘war ondrugs’ on criminal justice terrain. The singu-lar potential exception is a prairie HealingLodge which was opened in Saskatchewan byCorrectional Services of Canada in 1995. De-signed specifically for aboriginal women ‘inconflict with the law’, with a total capacity of30 women, this minimum security facility is atacit acknowledgement that punitive statepolicies have had a destructive effect on FirstNations communities. The Healing Lodge,which was designed by First Nations peoplefrom outside criminal justice systems, usesculturally appropriate, consensual methods ofassisting prisoners with problems in a socialcontext. It does not, however, eliminate thestigma of incarceration (Faith, 1995). Womenwho benefit from programs in the HealingLodge still have a criminal record, and arestill separated from their dependent childrenand their communities. Moreover, in theyears of its existence, under the watchful eyeof federal corrections officials, practices havebecome more punitive, more like a ‘real’prison. The contradiction between ‘healing’and ‘punishment’ is too great to sustain agenuinely healing environment.

People in all times and places have foundanodynes and elixirs to alter their mentalstate—to soothe or to stimulate—and willcontinue to do so. The varied leaves, berries,liquids, roots, powders, seeds and so onwhich are now generalized as ‘drugs’ havelong been recognized by many cultures as


having beneficial effects both for individualsand in group rituals. Prisons have done andcan do nothing at all to dissuade the entirepopulace from the use of drugs. Even if everysingle person who uses an illegal or addictivesubstance were incarcerated, illegal drug usewould continue to flourish, in prison. Crimi-nalization results in the production of bothmore refined synthetic illegal drugs (whichare more dangerous and/or potent) and anout-of-control illegal drug distribution systemfraught with he-man battles over money andturf. The ‘war on drugs’ not only infringes onhuman rights of the citizenry; it also facili-tates governmental corruption, as with theBush–Noriega fiasco. Clearly, we need moresensible responses to what some interpret tobe a serious social problem.

If the billions of dollars spent each year tosearch out and destroy ‘drug pushers’ wereinstead diverted to socially beneficial services,we could see the beginning of a constructiveresponse. Legalization would eliminate thestigma attached to criminalization. The inclu-sion of present or former drug users on allrelevant policy-making boards would effec-tively challenge existing mythologies support-ing current policies. Non-coercive economic,medical and social services for women wouldgive drug-using mothers vital support, in-stead of adding yet another dimension of riskand harmful social control to their lives.Their families would no longer have to bedisrupted while they sit in a prison cell. Fi-nally, we need to acknowledge the drug-re-lated discriminations at the level of socialpolicy. Biases based on class, gender and‘race’ are deeply embedded in current prac-tices, such as harsher penalties for crack co-caine, a ‘street’ drug, than for powderedcocaine, more often a ‘suite’ drug. The im-pact of multi-national corporate capitalismon the illegal drug market is not lost onusers:

It’s like an industry now, there’s this bigindustry that sucks off of drugs being crim-inalized. And the criminal element gainsfrom it. And the police agents and theweapons manufacturers and all that, theybenefit from it being illegal. But…keepingit illegal doesn’t really make much sense(quoted by Boyd, 1999 p. 201–202).

As recently as 20 years ago, anyone whosuggested legalization of certain illegal drugswas perceived as a muddle-headed heretic.Nowadays, there are large numbers of peoplefrom virtually every walk of life and ideolog-ical persuasion who agree that present poli-cies are self-defeating. Members of lawenforcement, politicians, lawyers, doctors, so-cial service agents, prison guards, governmentand academic researchers, social critics, drugcounselors, media journalists et al., all ofwhich occupations are part of the problem,have joined their voices in search of harm-re-duction solutions (cf. Reinarman and Levine,1997). These ‘radical’ renegades from conven-tional wisdom do not always agree on themeans or the methods of approaching the‘problem’, but they do recognize the need foralternatives to existing laws and punitivepolicies. Working toward legalization wouldbe a first step toward reducing the numbersof both women and men in prisons and rein-stating social justice as a workable goal forour varied societies.

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